Kerry’s first good one-liner

If a gentleman is someone who never offers an unintentional insult, then George W. Bush is no gentleman. (Yes, yes, I know there were already sufficient facts to support that conclusion.)

The latest instance is Bush’s comment that the people of Iraq are ready to “take the training wheels off.” Right. Nothing like comparing the Iraqis to children to give them warm, fuzzy feelings about their occupiers.

In that context, give John Kerry extra bonus points for asking, after Bush fell off his bicycle, “Did the training wheels fall off?”

[That assumes Kerry really said it; there’s no source for that story but Drudge. Why Kerry would want his first really good line of the campaign kept off the record is beyond me.]

Author: Mark Kleiman

Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out.
Books:
Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken)
When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The EconomistAgainst Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993)
Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989)
UCLA HomepageCurriculum Vitae
Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com
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